15 Quotes About Brunch From Famous Chefs, Actors, and Rappers

Few trends in the culinary world are more controversial than brunch. Booze-fueled, Hollandaise sauce-drenched, and forever labeled as "basic," the meal is at once lauded for its brazen, mid-morning drunkenness, and derided as the latest symbol of white, millennial privilege and American gluttony. It takes a special kind of menu—one famously filled with frittatas, Bloody Marys, and buckets of bottomless mimosas—to inspire an endless array of Pintrest boards, as well as a Black Lives Matter-affiliated protest movement.

Brunch's PR problem can perhaps be traced back to Anthony Bourdain, the chef, traveler, and bad boy bon vivant whose 2000 memoir, Kitchen Confidential, sought to expose the dark underbelly of the cooking world. In one of its more vivid passages, the book portrays brunch as little more than a money making scheme, with restaurant owners preying on unsuspecting customers by way of weeks-old ingredients and B-team line cooks.

Since Bourdain stoked the flames of debate in the early Aughts, brunch has become a cultural touchstone in American cities, with poets, rappers, actors, and newspapers picking apart the meals merits and faults over the years. From Maya Angelou and Kendrick Lamar, to Lena Dunham and Homer Simpson, brunch remains a contentious muse in popular culture.

Anthony Bourdain

Thoughts on the matter: "Remember, brunch is only served once a week—on the weekends. Buzzword here, 'Brunch Menu.' Translation? 'Old, nasty odds and ends, and 12 dollars for two eggs with a free Bloody Mary.'"

The New York Times

Thoughts on the matter? "What I can’t do anymore is live the brunch lifestyle, which has become a parody of itself. Now that I see brunch for what it is — conspicuous consumption disguised as urbanity — I can’t enjoy it."

Quincy Jones

Thoughts on the matter: "I like white people, they invented brunch. It's great. No body had that market cornered before you guys. Shout out to white people. As I get older, I do a lot of white people things. Like I said, I like brunch, but what's whiter than that is I write Yelp reviews about the brunch I go to."

Stephen Colbert

Thoughts on the matter: “What is this?! Five percent of the people at this table are paying 40 percent of the tip, which should be 50 percent! Twenty percent for good service, or 18.5 percent for a party of six or more. I am tired of the great majority of seltzer drinkers footing the bill for a small number of mimosa drinkers. Yes, I did take a bit of the fruit plate, but I was on record as against ordering it. The point is: This brunch is rigged! This brunch is rigged!”

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